Alternate Realities
by icer01
Summary: Written for a meme request. Pre - JFA Edgeworth wishes he'd never existed, and conveniently gets to view the consequences of his wish! How are the PW characters' lives different? Sort of a parody. Slight hint Edgeworth X Phoenix.


_Sort of set around game 2 ie. when Edgeworth runs off suicidally overseas. Spoilers for case 3-4. Written for a meme request._

* * *

Miles Edgeworth fervently wished he had never been born.

He'd wanted to kill himself, but that was more difficult than it seemed, and besides, the people still alive would be either hurt or think badly of him. It would probably hurt Wright, or at least annoy him, since he went to all that trouble to save him during the trial.

I love him, admitted Edgeworth, but why he would love someone like me I cannot comprehend. It would be better for both of us if I had never been born.

It seemed unlikely that this event would magically occur. Miles had considered taking a suicidal overdose of sleeping pills, but thankfully he'd read on the Internet that they didn't really kill you, just made you hideously sick. But taking a smaller overdose would surely just send him into unconscious dreamless sleep for the next 24 hours. During that time, he could pretend he didn't exist.

Soon he was out cold on the floor. He seemed to be having these strange hallucinations however. So much for peaceful, dreamless relief.

Miles began to relax. This wasn't so bad. He'd been scared he'd have a nightmare, but this was like one of those cheesy cartoons. There was even music and one of those scenes where the screen faded all wavy and blurry. Gee, he must have been watching too much TV...

Edgeworth was unable to suppress a scream of pure terror at the hideous apparition before him. It was quite the scariest moment of his life, even worse than that fatal earthquake. The ghost of Manfred Von Karma had appeared before him!

"So you wished you were never born, Miles?" it cackled evilly, "Well since I am eternally committed to your torture.. uh I mean, well-being, I have arrived to grant your wish!"

"Uh, no thank you, Sir.." stammered Miles, unable to stop quivering in terror, but von Karma just sneered "Too late. Now, let's observe the results from afar together, shall we?"

Miles turned to run away, but it seemed his physical body had gone. There was no way to escape. Images began to fill his visual sphere. He watched in captivation.

* * *

8-year-old Phoenix Wright reflected sadly that his parents just didn't seem to like him much. He mother was always yelling at him, and his father was always yelling at his mother. Well, in actuality his father wasn't around much. He was always off playing poker and gambling. His dad was very good at poker, but he always gambled away all his winnings instantly, so he never seemed to bring back any money.

His mother was always yelling at him for things he hadn't even done. Phoenix knew he couldn't possibly have done most of the things she accused him of, so obviously she must be mistaken. Confused or something. Surely he wasn't really a bad person, if the things she was mad at him about weren't even true? Still, even though he was sure she had the wrong impression of him, it hurt that she didn't like him.

One day, his father disappeared, and his mother told him he wasn't coming back. They moved house, and that year Phoenix began 4th grade at another school.

Phoenix only knew one other kid in the class. He'd seen Larry Butz a few times because their dads had played poker and gambled together, but they weren't really close friends. Phoenix didn't have much self-confidence. He hoped he wouldn't get into trouble. He gazed at the empty chair in the classroom. It always just sat there. He wondered why.

One day, somebody's money had been stolen (Seemed Larry couldn't help himself in any alternate reality, reflected Edgeworth.) Everyone immediately pointed at the perfect scapegoat. Phoenix Wright.

"I didn't do it!" Phoenix sobbed, but they ignored him.

They held a farcical class trial, really just an attempt to demonise him. (And their prosecution case is vile and riddled with holes and contradictions, murmured Edgeworth to himself). After a while, Phoenix broke down and 'admitted' to the crime, even though he hadn't done it.

The school called his mother and she was furious with him. "You're a bad evil boy who'll never amount to anything" she screamed at him. The other students saw it as the perfect excuse to have somebody to pick on. The teacher used him as her scapegoat too. Phoenix didn't understand why everybody hated him so much. Maybe he was just intrinsically bad.

Suddenly they'd skipped to a different time. Teenage Phoenix with his friend Larry. They'd just graduated junior high. And were quitting school.

"Uh, but Nick, aren't you a bit smarter? Shouldn't you do high school?" asked Larry.

"Nah," said Phoenix sadly, "I'll never amount to anything. I may as well get a few more years of McDonalds experience under my belt."

"But you got a really good mark in Legal Studies! Even if you failed practically everything else. I know you didn't study at all, so maybe if you did.."

"Shut up, Larry," growled Phoenix.

* * *

A 20? year old Phoenix - Edgeworth flinched - yes it was him. His body was covered in dragon tattoos and a vast array of deep cuts which Edgeworth didn't think were merely a fashion statement. Worse still, he had a chain attached to his neck and was being pulled along like a dog. And holding the end of the chain was...

Dahlia Hawthorne.

Yes it was indeed Dahlia, and not Iris. She was continuously hitting him on the head with her parasol and screeching orders.

"Yes, my lovely Demon!" whimpered Wright. Listening to their conversation, seemed 'Demon' was Dahlia's 'pet' name.

A flash and Phoenix and Dahlia were in another time, Edgeworth's heart palpitated as he saw they were at the bridge which haunted one of his many nightmares. Dahlia was yelping about kidnapping and diamonds. However, something she said seemed to petrify Wright and he started to protest, so she tied his chain to the end of the bridge, where he hunched quaking and whimpering like an abandoned puppy.

Miles was terrified for Wright. Surely the police would realise he was just an unwilling bystander to the crime? How strange that the fate that brought him to meet Dahlia was so strong that it continued into this reality.

Manfred seemed to sense his eagerness to analyse whatever would happen next, and evilly forced a timeskip. "We know he's a murderer!" Manfred hissed.

* * *

Mia and Diego were coming out of the law library at the courthouse, where they'd been working on one of Diego's cases. Edgeworth breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Mia. Obviously, her and Phoenix's meeting was completely predestined. She'd save him and he'd become a lawyer, and...

A huge commotion had been occurring in the courtroom. Mia and Diego rushed over to the massive crowd that had gathered. Seemed that the defendant for the murder trial of Valerie Hawthorne, one Phoenix Wright, had refused to be defended by all the state appointed defense attorneys, merely screaming he was a bad, guilty person. He'd demanded to defend himself, upon which he had just stood at the defendant stand and sobbed "I'm a bad evil guilty person and I deserve the death penalty!"

"So you confess to your crimes?" the judge had asked.

"Yes!!" sobbed Phoenix

"Which crime, specifically?" the judge had asked.

"That I was BORN!!" Phoenix had yelled, before bashing his head against the courtroom wall. Thankfully, the judge had ruled he was incapable of defending himself and had demanded a state attorney be appointed. Nobody wanted the case, so right now the attorneys were writing names on slips of paper, one unlucky one of which would be pulled out of a box.

Phoenix was being dragged past in handcuffs. Mia glanced over at him in pity and was suddenly hit by the most bizarre feeling of deja-vu. Had they.. met? Something in his eyes seemed to captivate her. The same eyes horrified her, a transparent window into crushed faith and a broken soul.

"I'm taking the case," Mia announced to Diego, almost as if in a dream.

"WHAT!?"

"I have to. He... needs help.."

"Please, Mia, I'm sorry. He is beyond help. We have to cut our losses and concentrate on those who can still be saved. It's too late for him."

"But he'll get the death penalty! And he's obviously mentally ill!"

"I'm sorry. But I'm sure you don't want your first trial to be a loss?" Diego sighed. Why bother arguing with the determined look in Mia's eyes. He was sure this would hurt her though.

Winston Payne was prosecuting. He was just as nasty in this reality, lambasting Mia as a 'stupid simpering little girl'. He was trying to make Wright testify again.

"But the defendant is in no fit medical state to testify! He's obviously mentally ill! He needs to see a psychologist immediately!"

After a while, Payne decide to get the 'innocent bystander' Dahlia Hawthorne (or whatever alias she went by) to testify. To Edgeworth's relief, Mia was poking lots of holes in her testimony. Maybe she'd get the 'Not Guilty' verdict for Wright after all.

However, Payne managed to withdraw Dahlia and have Wright testify again. He didn't do much except whimper about how he was somehow an intrinsically bad person and Dahlia didn't do it.

"Mr Wright, why?" asked Mia. "You most obviously didn't commit the crime. Why are you covering for Dahlia?"

"Because I'm (_sob_) bad! I've known it, ever since 4th grade, I.." Suddenly he turned a greyish hue, and blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

"MR WRIGHT! Quick, call an ambulance!" cried Mia.

"I.. took the poison.. I'm bad... so I deserve to die..." gasped Phoenix, before collapsing.

Dead.

"PHOENIX!!" screamed Mia. Something had hurt her, far more than as if she'd just met the defendant an hour ago.

Edgeworth was quaking. He tried to scream "NOOOOOOOO" but somehow his voice dried up and no sound would come out. He covered his eyes with his hands, only to have von Karma violently yank them away. "It gets better!" he hissed maniacally.

Some bailiff was talking to the Judge. "Oh. Oh no," the judge was saying, turning even paler. "Uh, Ms Fey, I'm afraid we'll have to suspend the trial. Some.. confidential information concerning you has just been reported."

"Confidential! Huh!" smirked Payne. "Guess what," he continued loudly. "Your sister, Maya Fey, has just been murdered. We believe it's related to this case."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!" screamed Mia, collapsing to the floor in sobs.

"How dare you tell her that in court!" yelled Diego at Payne, before dropping to the floor and wrapping his arms around Mia.

It was all too much to bear. If he'd had a digestive system, Edgeworth would have vomited. No. Please. No! he croaked weakly, his vision blurring. He opened his eyes.

To find himself back lying on the floor, surrounded by pills and his own vomit.

Was it a dream?

Sadly, Edgeworth was too weak to find out for a few hours. However, eventually he was able to crawl over to his wallet and pull out a photo. That photo taken after Wright had resolved the DL-6 incident.

What a relief. Wright was in it!

It was just a dream, wasn't it?

All the same, it was reasonable to expect that things would be different for Wright if he had not been born. Maybe they really would have been worse.

"I love you, Wright.." murmured Edgeworth. "Somehow, I'll find a way to make your life really be better because of me...one day..."


End file.
